


pray the sun will rise (every single night)

by orphan_account



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not Really an Eating Disorder, That's it, someone tries to induce vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tyler spends his eight christmas like any other. his family gathered around a long table, relatives sharing stories and laughing until they have glassy eyes and an aching stomach. it's the idyllic christmas party.<br/>but months before his ninth christmas, the bright red and green lights and metres of golden tinsel are replaced by shouting and angry stares and doors being slammed shut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pray the sun will rise (every single night)

**IX**

tyler spends his eight christmas like any other. his family gathered around a long table, relatives sharing stories and laughing until they have glassy eyes and an aching stomach. his favorite dishes, huge fresh-cut christmas tree and aunt carolyn’s gifts (since he found out about santa, he's realized all the best presents always had his name on her neat handwriting. she doesn't disappoint that year either). it's his idyllic christmas party.

but months before his ninth christmas, the bright red and green lights and metres of golden tinsel are replaced by shouting and angry stares and doors being slammed shut. it goes on for days, until christmas eve, when he hears his mum walk into his room at the crack of dawn. there’s the sound of a zipper, and is that his closet door?

he pulls the covers back and sits up, kneeling on the bed as he rubs his eyes. in the dark, all he can make out are the bright green numbers from his alarm clock and his mother's figure, hunched over his dresser and grabbing clothes she carelessly throws into what he guesses is his school bag. “momma?”

she turns around abruptly, surprised by her son's voice. her eyes are wide open, ponytail messily made in a hurry with hairs sticking out everywhere, and tyler thinks she looks like one of those wild animals on that animal planet documentary he saw once.

“hey, ty.” she crawls over to him, and her unsettling smile does nothing but make his latest comparison more and more accurate. she plops next to his bed and places her hands on his knees, patting them softly, and it's a gesture so familiar that tyler can't help but put his hands over hers. “would you like to go somewhere new for christmas?”

tyler puckers his lips. there's two other soft pats on his knees before he replies.

“but… will everyone else come? is aunt carolyn gonna be there?”

aunt carolyn gives the warmest hugs and loves christmas just as much as him. and she gets him the best presents with his name on her neat handwriting. she _has_ to be there.

“of course, sweetie.” his mother nods solemnly. “we’ll just head out early so i can help get things ready.”

her head's tilted to the side and her hands rub circles on his knees as she tells him about this new place ( _“just a friend's house, you’re gonna love him”),_ and he'd be lying if he said something didn't smell fishy. but it was his momma. if she said everyone would be there the next day, then they’d be there.

“okay.”

but when christmas morning comes, all he's met with is his mother and her friend leaning on the kitchen counter sharing a cherry cigarette and silence.

(when they return home two days later, his mom’s friend gives her a goodbye kiss on the corner of her mouth, and aunt carolyn hands him a spiderman figure. he guesses they ran out of the barbies he had asked for, so he smiles and takes it.)

**XIII**

on his thirteenth christmas, he's laying on a hotel bed with his sister. it's just their luck their father is getting married the next day, (honestly, who marries the 26th of december?) and they weren't allowed to stay home. really, tyler would rather put up with his mother and her overly affectionate boyfriend than come to the wedding of a man that packed his bags four years ago and he only ever sees on thanksgiving and aunt carolyn’s birthday (after the barbie request, her christmas gifts started to become duller and duller. he should have guessed as much.)

but here he is, on a hotel in indiana after travelling in aunt carolyn’s old mustang for hours. said aunt is sleeping on the bed next to his, and his sister is playing _kim kardashian: hollywood_ laying next to him, and when he unlocks his phone he sees it’s _12:07 am_. his thirteenth christmas is officially over, and he spent it inside a car looking at trees pass by and considering whether his aunt would be too mad if he jumped out of the moving vehicle. wonderful times these are.

**XV**

he sits on the sagging couch and looks around. the tv is still on after god knows how many hours, displaying a 90’s telenovela with no sound. there’s sunlight coming through the half-open blinds, a coke can on the floor and dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. well, it's been worse.

now, family. mum is… somewhere with her boyfriend. he should text her later. probably not. and maddy’s at a friend's, he thinks. he should probably go to someone's house at least for a little while, too, to smell the homemade food and see the decorations and the fresh-cut christmas tree and pretend it was all his, if just for a second. but mark was away, and he doesn't really want to bother anyone else, so with a sigh he stands up to pick up the empty can and wash the dishes.

he spends his fifteenth christmas alone. it has to be the best one yet.

**XVII**

tyler spends his seventeenth christmas kneeling in front of the toilet, the pads of his fingers pressed against his lips as he stares at the water in the bowl and ponders on it.

it's just this one time. or as many times as it takes to get clean. he’ll just cut out some food and stick his fingers down his throat a few times and voilà. as good as new.

it's not an addiction unless he loses control. which he won't.

it won't be a problem unless he allows it to become one. unless he doesn't know when to stop. which he does.

does he?

yes, he does. it's a temporary thing and it'll be gone as soon as it started. he can do this.

he has his fingers almost down to the knuckle and starts to gag a bit when he hears maddy calling for him.

he stays still for a moment, looking at his reflection on the water in the bowl, lips stretched around a pair of fingers and glassy eyes struggling to focus. after a quiet minute of staring, with two more demands from his sibling one floor up, he reluctantly removes his fingers with a pop, wipes them on his jeans and heads towards his sister's room.

(he does throw up later, by the end of the night when everyone's in bed. but it’s not quick enough, _nothing_ is quick enough, and the taste on his mouth isn’t worth the slow process.)

**XXI**

by the time tyler’s twenty one, christmas is the most dreadful time of the year.

his roommate and his friends always try to get him to celebrate. they take him to bars and house parties, introduce him to cute guys, shop with him for presents, even wore identical ugly christmas sweaters for a week straight once. all tyler does is smile softly and thank them, because he truly is thankful for the effort they put in trying to get him to have a good time, but it's just not happening.

on his twenty first christmas eve, he steps on a kitten. he was just leaving a club early (after another attempt from his friends at having fun on jesus christ’s almost birthday, which hey, it was almost successful, except the girl he kept bumping into was fighting with her girlfriend and her voice sounded so much like his _mum’s_ , and he needed out quick) when the animal walks in front of him. he’s too lost in his own thoughts to realize its paw is right under his feet, and with a yowl it hides behind a dumpster. and maybe tyler's just a bit too sensitive, or tonight has left him just a bit more vulnerable, or he's just a bit weird like that, but after staring at the impossibly small crack the kitten crept into, he falls to his knees next to the bin and clicks his fingers a few times.

"hey, little guy, come on out. i didn’t mean it.”

there's no sign of the cat, but before he can click his fingers a few more times, someone kneels next to him.

"how did she manage to get in there?" they ask, and tyler jumps, almost falling on his back at the sound of their voice. they just smile at him, and he's too confused to make a comment about it.

"that was my cat, right? white, black spot on her chest, odd-eyed? she just ran off", the person points to the dumpster, and it takes tyler more time than necessary to process what this stranger is saying.

he nods, even if he didn't get to see the animal closely, and he wonders who walks their cat this late on christmas eve, but it's not like he's gonna ask.

with a few calls from her owner, the kitten comes out, standing on two legs to place both of her paws on their knee, and they smile as they pick her up and cradle her to their chest.

somehow, the person introduces himself as josh and manages to convince him to walk him home, because tyler's eyes are still red and a little unfocused from the few beers he'd had, and he doesn't know if leading a stranger straight to his house is the brightest idea he's ever had (hint: it's definitely not), but josh's eyeing him worriedly and his cat has a name tag that says buttercup and he's wearing a _keep calm_ t-shirt, so he doubts there's anything to fear about him.

by the time he closes his apartment door behind him, he has a new number on his phone. they don't instantly connect; there's no constant messaging or falling in love through texts that day, but he does get a _merry christmas tyler :)_ at 11:28 am the next morning. that's the earliest anyone's ever said it to him, so he smiles and instantly texts back. he can't help the row of smiling emojis he puts at the end of it.

**XXII**

"you could have helped, you know?"

he hums back as a response, not looking up from his phone, and it's not until there's a heavy weight on top of him that he huffs and puts it down, only to see a body on top of his and a mess of blue hair. he frowns and tries to keep up the angry act, but josh has his face pressed against his stomach, shoulders shaking with muffled laughter, and he can't keep himself from chuckling along.

"seriously," he says, lifting up his face and propping his chin on tyler's chest, "you could have carried at least the light ones."

"nah, i knew you could handle it."

he looks back to the cardboard boxes scattered about the apartment's floor, full of tyler's clothes and books and everything _his_ , though not really, because most of those boxes have at least something he took from josh once, and he doesn’t doubt that it’s going to keep happening once he unpacks. they're going to take and borrow and forget which shirt is whose and it's gonna be clothes and books and everything _theirs_. it’s all theirs. he's all his.

there’s a hand running through his hair, and his eyelids droop as fingers lightly pull on his locks. stubble against his cheek, chapped lips pressing against his jaw, fingers pulling, and something murmured against his skin that he can’t quite get.

“wha’s tha’?” he mumbles, eyelids half open to see josh’s eyes disappear under blue curls as he smiles big at him, and he’s so in love.

“i said you’re mean and only keep me around to do all the hard work,” he pokes him on the side, gaining a whimper and a jolt in response. “but s’okay, ‘cause, you know, i love you and i‘m glad you’re here and all that.”

tyler blinks at him, staring at josh as he gets comfortable on top of him and relaxes, lying limp as he closes his eyes and falls asleep within minutes. he can’t blame him--josh’s been going up and down the stairs with boxes full of his stuff for the past hour. he deserves some rest.

as he plays with the curls on the nape of his neck, he looks around. he’s glad, too, that he’s here. he’s glad that over the last year he’s been able to slowly start putting himself back together, to look forward to christmas now with a bit more joy and hope and all the things he’s been missing since he was nine, to not think about _divorce aunt carolyn stepmom dad’s not here mum’s gonna marry that bastard maddy hasn’t called_ and instead focus on what to get josh. he’s truly glad he didn’t question him when he said they _had_ to move in together before christmas, that josh only nodded and pulled him closer when he said they had to spend their first christmas together somewhere that was theirs.

he pulls a bit tighter on the curls, and smiles when he hears a little sigh escape josh’s mouth and his face pressing impossibly closer to his chest.

everything _theirs_. it’s all theirs. he's all his.


End file.
